Mohali: Australia's inability to reverse swing the ball is a cause of concern as they head into the third Test 1-0 down, skipper Ricky Ponting has admitted.
Australia's struggles with the ball have been exposed all the more because of the success the Indian bowlers enjoyed in the second Test, which they won Tuesday by a record 320-run margin to seize the lead in the four-Test series.
Left-arm paceman Zaheer Khan picked three wickets from four balls on the fifth morning with a prodigiously swinging ball, leaving the Aussies completely bamboozled.
Young Ishant Sharma was equally effective, troubling the batsmen with his monstrous swing, underlined by his sensational dismissals of Ponting in both the innings.
Ponting said it was imperative for his bowlers to achieve reverse swing early in the innings as the Indians have managed to do.
"We do need to definitely get it going as quickly as we possibly can," he said after the team's defeat here on Tuesday. "The Indians have been getting the ball to swing extremely quickly, as early as the eighth over, which is amazing. But for us it is not swinging. This has made a huge difference."
Ponting praised the Indian bowlers. "We always expected that Zaheer and Sharma would come down hard at us and they have showed in this game how good they are.
"Sharma used the swinging ball very well. The angle that Sharma creates is unusual. He is posing a challenge for us. We will have to find ways to combat their bowlers."
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